Washington – The World Bank issued a report on the economic prospects for the Middle East and North Africa region, focusing on the regional conflict and its repercussions.
The World Bank considered that the ongoing conflict in the region comes at a time when global economic growth is slowing for the third year in a row following the Corona pandemic, indicating that the economic performance of the Middle East and North Africa region lags behind the performance of emerging market economies and other developing economies, which are expected to grow by 4.4% in 2023 and 3.9% in 2024, compared to expected growth rates of 1.9% and 2.7%, respectively, for the Middle East and North Africa region.
Regarding the war on Gaza, the report commented that its impact was devastating on the Strip (heavy civilian casualties, a displacement crisis, massive damage to infrastructure and buildings, and an 86% drop in gross domestic product in the last quarter of the year), indicating that the impact of this war did not It is not equal to the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region.
He pointed out that some countries with low economic ties with Palestine, such as Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, barely felt any repercussions except for the rise in prices of basic commodities.
On the other hand, neighboring countries felt the brunt of the war, especially in terms of the international trade and tourism sectors. With regard to Lebanon, the war has already caused serious damage to infrastructure, noting that a large portion of agricultural land was burned and polluted, and the greatest impact was on olive cultivation (which represents 7% of total agricultural production in Lebanon), where regarding 100,000 people were damaged. Square meters of olive groves.
The tourism sector was also greatly affected by the war, as the number of air travelers decreased by more than 20% on an annual basis during the months of October and November.
The report expected Lebanon to record economic growth of 0.5% in 2024, compared to an economic contraction of 0.2% in 2023 and 0.6% in 2022. It is also expected that the average growth of real GDP per capita will improve from 1.2% in 2022. To 2.4% in 2023 and 3.1% in 2024.
The World Bank also expected that Lebanon’s current account deficit would remain high at 10.4%, compared to 11% in 2023 and 32.7% in 2022.
As for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the World Bank indicated that the gap in economic growth between the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and oil importing countries in the Middle East and North Africa region reached 5.6 percentage points in the year 2022, while this gap is expected to reach 0.9 percentage points. Only in the year 2024.
Source: “World Bank”
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2024-04-23 13:05:34
